COVID19: 5 deaths, drop in cases and patients

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Cyprus counted five coronavirus deaths on Friday, up from the three daily reported throughout most of the week, while new daily cases and hospitalisations continued to fall to 311 and 201, respectively.

The health ministry said in its Covid bulletin that five men, aged 53 to 88, were the latest victims of the Covid-19 pandemic, raising the August death toll to 51 and to 475 since the pandemic started.

Some 48,060 PCR and antigen rapid tests were conducted during the past 24 hours, about the same as on Thursday.

The 311 new infections, 109 less than the day before, and the total tests, generated a benchmark ‘test positivity’ rate of 0.65%, lower than Thursday’s 0.87%, and below the high-risk threshold of 1.00%.

At present, 201 patients are admitted for Covid-19 treatment in state hospitals, 7 less than the day before, of whom 77 are critical, eight less than Thursday.

Of these, 45 remain intubated, unchanged from the previous day, and 83.1% of patients are unvaccinated.

The total number of all SARS-CoV-2 infections during the past 17 months rose to 110,829.

Of the new cases, 7 passengers tested positive in PCR tests at Larnaca and Paphos airports, and 90 were diagnosed from private initiative and hospital tests.

A further 141 new cases were identified from private rapid tests at labs and pharmacies, while 73 were positive from the free national testing programme, available only to those vaccinated or recovered from earlier infection.

Of these, 24 were in Nicosia, 15 in Limassol, 10 in Paphos, 7 in Larnaca and 5 in Famagusta region.

Nine of 585 tests of staff and residents at retirement homes were positive.

Some 116 tourists tested negative at hotels, having completed their seventh day of stay on the island, while 77 random rapid tests on passengers arriving at both airports also tested negative.